Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/October 2
- 1851 - The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass is demonstrated but proves to be a fake
- 1852 – Birth of William Ramsay, Scottish chemist (d. 1916)
- 1853 – Death of François Jean Dominique Arago, French mathematician (b. 1786)
- 1907 – Birth of Alexander R. Todd, Scottish chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1997)
- 1917 – Birth of Christian de Duve, English-born biologist, Nobel laureate
- 1925 - John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system
- 1927 – Death of Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
- 1947 – Death of Peter D. Ouspensky, Russian mathematician and philosopher (b. 1878)
- 1962 – Death of Boris Y. Bukreev, Russian mathematician (b. 1859)
- 1987 – Death of Peter Medawar, Brazilian-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1915)
- 2002 – Death of Heinz von Foerster, Austrian-born physicist and philosopher (b. 1911)